Vertigo
by Arya May
Summary: What were they after all, but reflections of their own people. — Germancest slash. WWII era. Edited.


_**Vertigo**_

**A/N: I felt bad for not writing anything Hetalia in the last half year or so, since I've been doing a lot of TES stuff- especially on Morrowind. Yesterday I decided to do a bit of reading on WWII and I just had to write this. A '_what if_' story.**

**Well, not really I suppose, but it's honestly one of the more depressing things I've written in a while. I think honestly, that there may be something wrong with me. When I write anything involving Prussia, 90% of the time it's totally just sad shit.**

**Anyhow, read and review please~**

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The paperwork on Prussia's desk was being neglected again, something that was no longer surprising to witness after years of not giving a damn about things, getting yelled by his brother to no purposeful end, and then letting the cycle repeat itself for only the purposes of unpragmatic nostalgia.

He had to admit though, that this job was better than the previous- sitting at meetings, enduring the drawn out hypocrisies of diplomatic trading. They had revoked his invitation after some rude words to the Soviet ambassador that he had voiced on the behalf of his side of the room, and walked out with a half contained curse still sitting on his lips.

_At least this will give you something to do_, Germany had said after one of their typical arguments (coming up so often these days). Of course he'd rather be outside with a gun, shooting what annoyed him, away from Berlin, away from the sorry state that they had both fallen into. Filing the request though had gotten him a tongue lashing from his boss, who saw him more as a troublemaker and a waste of time as opposed to what he was supposed to be- strict, orderly, the basis of _perfection_-

(Like Ludwig was. Oh, and the dislike was mutual.)

So he had left the subject alone for once and turned a blind eye towards things that made him sneer in apprehension otherwise, things that were considered _unimportant_ nowadays in the face of everything. If he moved one step to the right, he would bear witness to the removal of the final foundations of the state which had been falling apart since somewhere after 1918, and if he moved one step to the left, well-

But did it matter? Left, right. It was too confusing for him to make sense of, the same philosophical crap that he used to detest until Fritz came along and drilled it into his head. He could feel choices dig into his skin sometimes until he can't feel pain for all the tug. Nothing he said really mattered anymore anyhow. His people were no longer completely his own.

And at moments like this he would feel bitter over that, like perhaps any would in his scenario. Sometimes he wondered what his previous leaders would have thought if they saw what things had ended up like. Fritz if he had been there as they burned all the books, one by one, many that he remembered they had talked over once during those faraway summer nights at Sanssouci. Bismarck if he had been there when the Empire broke apart. It- it wasn't a topic he liked to linger on. Too often had he felt lost like he hadn't had in centuries, and his brother no longer _understood_ the implications that his words once carried.

Because damn it all, _this_ wasn't the way things were supposed to go. Empires were not to be rebuilt on the foundations of the blood of their own people. Prussian blue wasn't supposed to become an acid that became a poison that _chokes- chokes- kills_- _and_-

(He shook his head to clear away those thoughts- not because they frightened him because he was too awesome for that- not because they spoke of something that was almost like a half concealed truth- and not that he was afraid of ever losing but…)

_But-_

Gilbert lit the last cigarette that he could find in the box on his desk before leaning back onto the chair and wondering how he was supposed to do all this- work on what he's never given a damn about before. He had been too distracted and that never was a good sign, a symptom that generally arose when he had been sitting still for too long a time. The smoke that hazily drifted into the air reminded him of grey winged twilight.

If anything, he's _pissed_, but not in the typical way- with oaths and fire and gunshots and war. It was a different kind of _pissed_, something that reminded him too much of the type that Austria was fond of for comfort. Ice where hell did not burn, and a restlessness that had no name. If he were to be artlessly poetic about it, he would say that it was like having claws dig into him a fraction deeper with every day that had passed.- for six years now, he believed.

Would Germany be more or less angry if he just settled for dumping all the paperwork in their order of importance? Or would he just get another talk on how _everything_ was important and that no record of anything should be considered bull even if it was something as meaningless as the movements of the Reich's non existent enemies?

His brows curved down distastefully. Suddenly his mouth tasted sour and the room was too stuffy, and the afternoon sun was too much to bear. Out of pure impulse he pulled a pistol out of his desk and shot a few times at the wall opposing him.

Maybe he shouldn't have done it but fuck, it was _a relief_. Already he could hear footsteps approaching his door with irritation carved into the pace.

(It figured actually, that Ludwig was still the only one who would dare reprimand him.)

"This again. What is the meaning of this?"

_Oh, so many things_- he wanted to say, only to find it lodged somewhere in his throat. A half drawn smirk found its way on his face as an answer instead, where words did not fit. Germany stood, as stiff as a statue near the doorway, as damned impassive as one too, like he had been for the last two decades or so after Versailles.

_Shit doesn't matter anymore. Take it all with a grain of salt. If you tell a lie that's big enough, eventually it'll become the truth._

Something had changed between them, and he had spent so much time wondering exactly when it happened that it hurt his head at times. It was Prussia who had lost more than his brother, but it was his brother who took things with much more… more magnitude than both of them combined. What the War did not take away, the Party did. What were they after all, but reflections of their own people.

"Oh, West," said Gilbert, and beneath his natural tone was a subtle edge that had grown onto it like some sort of parasite, "Wasn't expecting you. Need something?"

(The lie was as smooth as quicksilver and about as hard to catch. Ludwig's gaze shifted for a second in thought.)

"The wall is not the answer to everything, brother."

"And those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

"...who said that? Frederick?"

"No." drawled the albino slowly for no sense at all, "A Frenchman that I once hated a very long time ago."

The worse part about it was how much of it was true, at least in the context of today. Revelation made his shoulders tense and he threw what was left of his burnt out cigarette into the overloaded ashtray. Ludwig noted it with apathy, if silence.

"Prussia, what's the problem now?"

It was an innocent question. Maybe that was why he didn't understand how it ended up serving as the catalyst that turned whatever he was feeling at the moment to anger.

Prussia stood up abruptly, red eyes dancing with a sort of fire that was normally reserved for war and murder and other such related things, "Nothing. Forget it. Leave."

"You don't like me inquiring."

"_Germany_-"

"What is it that you really want?" Ludwig's hands found themselves on his arms all of a sudden and Gilbert was left wondering since when his little brother had grown _so damned strong_, "This isn't like you. I don't understand."

_There's a lot of things you don't understand_. _You think you always know fucking everything and I_-

"Answers!" he shouted back, control dangling on breaking point, "This- what we're doing- to _everything_! You don't seriously believe it do you- this… this destruction of all we had done. Look at me, West. Do you think they can just go back and erase everything that they didn't like and-"

"Brother."

"-rewrite it to what they want us to believe… we were _there_ for it. Don't act like you don't care-"

And he didn't know when he started to shake, nor when the other kissed him coldly, a touch that meant nothing now, but he found that he still _wanted_, perhaps from old memories still haunting his footsteps. He knew what Ludwig was thinking, always knew- _this was someone he had raised into an Empire_- until recently, but he could still tell what was going on through his mind. Everything was for the good of the nation. His views were irrelevant in the greater picture.

It made Prussia's blood almost boil. He didn't resist the urge to punch the blond in the jaw.

"Why are you even here?" some small, twisted sense of satisfaction seeped into his words as he saw the beginning of a bruise on his brother's face, "You wanted a cheap fuck? There's dozens of women for that. Or maybe I'm just _special_."

"Shut up." said Germany, and shoved him onto the desk.

They were still men under the guise of nations, of course, and masochists of sorts as well. Pain and perhaps just a little hatred were the underlines that accompanied the rough touching, the careless scratches and bites. Neither of them tried to drag this _thing_- this creation of pent up tension and primordial need out longer than it took. The Reich didn't sympathize with that particular viewpoint nowadays, and vaguely, Gilbert wondered if his brother felt shame when he came inside of the albino's body.

But if he did, nothing was said, and truthfully speaking, Prussia gave no more of a flying fuck than he usually did to such motivations.

The world was as it is the way it stood, but he still did not forget his original question. When he asked it again, all Germany did was look at him and tell him _no_ and left him hanging without a further word, and a salute that felt like a knife cutting into his heart.

(_No_ be damned- _cursed_-)

And for once in his life, Prussia had nothing to say in response as the world spun in vertigo.

Falling.

And falling.

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**Notes:**

**1) Fritz/Frederick = Frederick the Great of Prussia, who was arguably the one responsible for launching Prussia from backwater state to European power after the Seven Years War and the Wars of the Austrian Succession. He was a total sucker for French and the arts so it's my headcanon that he taught Gilbert some of the finer things in life aside from war.**

**2) "...a Frenchman that I once hated..." = Voltaire. Why? Because Fritz totally his fanboy and Prussia wasn't too happy that anybody prefer another country's culture next to his imo.**

**3) "If you tell a lie that's big enough..." = Hitler said that. It's one of his most infamous quotes, because it's actually_ true_ if you think about it.**

**4) Bismarck = Chancellor of Prussia, and later, the German Empire. **

**5) ****"The Reich didn't sympathize with that particular viewpoint..." The Nazis hated anybody who engaged in homosexual activity. Had them gassed and stuff O_o The reason why Germany randomly decided to fuck Gil is because of the fact that they had that sort of relationship in the past and it was kind of that sense of reminiscence which prompted him. And hormones.**


End file.
